On Friday, February 13th, the USDA shamelessly approved two new varieties of GMO apples engineered by the Okanagan Specialty Fruits corporation with a new, untested “gene silencing” technique that scientists believe could have negative and unintended consequences on human health and the environment.

The problem is, this is only the beginning. At the moment, the same company already has new varieties of GMO peaches, pears and cherries in development and a new GMO banana will be tested on student volunteers in Iowa sometime this year.

Tragically, once approved these new GMO fruits will appear on grocery shelves across the country unlabeled. We need you to raise your voice today!

Under current U.S. law, these new GMO apples will not be required to contain proper common sense labels that tell consumers they have been genetically engineered. Instead, the new “non-browning” apples will appear under the company’s trademarked names as “Arctic® Granny” and “Arctic® Golden” for the lab altered Granny Smith and Golden Delicious varieties that are beloved by millions of Americans.

While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is currently reviewing company provided documents regarding corporate claims of the GMO apple’s safety for human consumption, the agency is expected to rubberstamp its approval under the FDA’s voluntary safety review process.

That’s right. There are no mandatory safety tests conducted by the FDA, nor are independent peer reviewed studies required to be submitted before new, experimental genetically engineered crops are approved. That's the sad truth about regulation of genetically engineered foods in America, it's a corporate science sponsored farce rubberstamped by the federal regulatory agencies responsible for protecting us.

Help support Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and House Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) who introduced the Genetically Engineered Food Right to Know Act to make labeling of GMO food mandatory in the United States. Your member of Congress needs to hear from you! Tell them to sign on to the Boxer/DeFazio bill as a co-sponsor today!

In three short years, you’ve helped pass strong GMO labeling bills in Vermont, Connecticut and Maine and forced Monsanto, DuPont, Dow Chemical and their junk food allies to spend more than $100 million to lie to you about why they refuse to tell you what’s in your food.

These same companies already label their products in 64 countries around the world to inform their citizens with simple labels if their food has been genetically engineered and it's time that we share this basic right as well.